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LE

Labour was forced on the defensive yesterday over its attempt to claim the Conservatives were committed to Â£35 billion of "cuts" in public services".

The Tories accused Labour of scare tactics and repeating a "big lie" after Tony Blair and Gordon Brown claimed the "cuts" were equivalent to sacking "every nurse, every teacher and every doctor".
Labour's controversial poster

Mr Blair and Mr Brown stood in front of a large black and yellow poster - mocked up to look like a warning sign. It stated: "Warning - the Tories will cut Â£35 billion from public services."

It emerged that the Â£35 billion figure was based on a comparison of Labour and Conservative spending plans in 2011-12. It would be the difference between a four per cent increase in public spending planned by the Tories and a five per cent increase projected by Labour.

There was further confusion when Labour ministers later refused to give a guarantee that in 2012 a future Labour government would be devoting 42 per cent of national income to public spending, the figure on which their claims of Tory "cuts" was based.

Although Mr Blair talked about Labour's "plans" to spend more than the Tories, the Treasury said last night there were no firm plans for spending beyond 2007-8, only "projections" of what might happen in future years.

When the Prime Minister was challenged about "distorting" Conservative policies, he appeared to backtrack, saying Tories would spend "Â£35 billion less" than Labour over the lifetime of the next Parliament, though he maintained it still represented a "cut" in the level of extra investment planned by Government.

The charge that the Tories would "cut" public services is central to Labour's election campaign.

Mr Blair hopes that it will undermine support for the Conservatives by reviving memories of public spending restraint when Margaret Thatcher was in power.

Mr Darling claimed that, according to the Tories own figures, they envisaged total public spending in 2011-12 would be Â£663.5 billion - Â£35 billion lower than Labour's expenditure plans.

He said that Tories were committed to further spending commitments totalling at least Â£15 billion.

As these would have to be funded by cuts elsewhere in spending plans, the total size of the Tories' "cuts" was Â£50 billion.

Mr Darling said savings on this scale could not be achieved by a cash freeze. A Tory government would have to cut departmental budgets.

"Far from being able to fund such huge cuts in 'bureaucracy', Â£35 billion is actually the equivalent of sacking every teacher, every GP and every nurse in the country - sacking 550,000 teachers, 81,000 GPs and 396,000 nurses," Mr Darling said.
Challenged over whether he was claiming a Conservative government would sack public servants on such a scale, Mr Darling said he was seeking to demonstrate "what Â£35 billion amounts to".

Michael Howard dismissed Mr Blair's claims that a Conservative government would have to cut front line services.

"The truth is, we plan to increase spending at 4 per cent a year, Labour plans to increase spending at 5 per cent a year so they plan to increase spending by a penny in the pound more than we do," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"We are absolutely confident that through cutting out waste and cutting out unnecessary spending and giving people value for money, we will be able to spend at least as much as Labour does on schools and hospitals over that period of time and on other front line services. So let's have a proper debate based on an honest difference and based on the facts."

Liam Fox, the Tory co-chairman, told BBC Radio 4's The World At One programme, said: "We have said we will be spending more, year on year, over and above inflation. And to call that a cut is at best a misrepresentation, at worst a downright lie."

LE

Old-Salt

The best thing about watching Blair get a savaging from the ITN blokey was how bloody funny Gordon Brown seemed to find it. Apparently Labour HQ deliberately didn't let the political journalists know where and when this was happening, apparently they don't like awkward questions - even the News of the World was frozen out!

We should be deeply offended that our Prime Minister has stood up and told bare faced lies again. Unfortunately most of us have already sunk into despair. Am off now to try to drink my way through various Belgian beers. Hopefully it will all look better in the morning?